Broccoli Cheese Pasta Casserole

I’ve been going on a pasta binge lately. No idea why. I feel like I only eat pasta and ice cream. Im a weirdo. Anyways, I made this dinner before school ended in May. I was lucky enough to only have 1 final and I was done a week before everyone else. However, some of my friends had some intense projects and finals and I found out that they were in labs and had no time to eat, let alone cook. So I offered to make a few of them some dinner. My friend Katie is a vegetarian so I stayed away from making meat for everyone. I also found that broccoli seemed to be the only vegetable that everyone could agree on. I dropped off a few servings for my friends and they said they’d heat it up when they had time. By the time I got home I had like 3 Facebook messages from my friends saying how delicious the meal was. I was having it for dinner that night and completely agreed. It was mac and cheese on overdrive. I’m going to go on a tangent now. Do you ever have discussions with your friends about what kind of mac and cheese is better… shapes or regular? Or if you use a spoon or a fork to eat it? Well my friends and I have had this debate WAY too many times (FYI shapes and spoons people! That’s where it’s at). I think majority of us have come to the conclusion that shapes are way better because it keeps the cheese in there (something with texture, surface area, I don’t know). That’s the way I feel about this pasta. The ridges of the fusilli just latch on to the cheesy goodness. It’s ridiculously good. I promise.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Boil a large pot of water. Add 2 tsp of salt and the olive oil. Once the water reaches a boil, add the pasta. Cook until al dente and drain pasta.

Meanwhile, cook broccoli in the microwave for 6 minutes. How I do this is I put the broccoli in a bowl and add some water and cover the bowl while it’s in the microwave so that it steams a bit. Drain any water from the bowl.

In a saucepan, melt butter. Stir in flour and milk. Whisk constantly until the mixture boils and thickens. Stir in cheddar cheese, salt, garlic powder, nutmeg and thyme until all ingredients are well blended. Add broccoli and pasta to the sauce and mix until fully incorporated.